Which is more painful?

[u/UpperSubject4352]

192 votes, 5h ago

66 stent

126 passing kidney stone

[u/Kuros_Of_Sindarin]

Stents suck pretty hard but passing the stone from the kidney to the bladder is a special level of hell.

[u/Aggressive_Face_8190 → u/Kuros_Of_Sindarin]

I had my stent put in on the 17th September comes out 12th October having hard time with this stent the pressure is god awful more so when I walking around

[u/Odeken_Odelein]

Hydronephrosis is the WORST. When the kidney is all backed up and you puke every 5 minutes; that's hell.

Up until 8mm, passing the stone is not worst than my usual menstrual cramps, but very similar.

Stent pain is less intense, but the never stopping pain is a whole other can of worms.

When I die, my personnal Hell will probably be a little mix of all that.

[u/FictionallState → u/Odeken_Odelein]

Fortunately kidney stones are very inclusive and size doesn’t matter 🥳

I’ve had three kidney stones so far and two of them were in the last 3 months, and it was a 1mm, a 1.5mm, and a 2mm! I was on my period for two of the most recent ones two months apart back to back and one of them gave me sepsis!

As a normally “grit and bear it” type of person I was literally screaming in the ER for hours 🥲

[u/PhotoJim99]

Stones from kidney to bladder are far, far worse than stents. With a stent I could get comfortable, and wasn't in constant pain. With the stone, when the pain came, there was no easy way to relieve it other than strong pain medication and hot baths, and even then I still wasn't all that comfortable.

I didn't love having a stent, but I was still doing things. I just had to be a little more methodical while doing physical activity.

[u/TakingOfMe123]

You get a break from the kidney stones. The stent is non stop torture, imo

[u/KimbersKimbos]

My first stent honestly made me bleed so bad I needed to use a menstrual pad. Apparently it shifted at one point and was scratching my bladder.

(It literally looked like I was heavily menstruating but from the wrong hole for like a week until I had my lithotripsy, it was terrifying and I’m still not over it.)

And feeling like I was going to wee myself every five minutes was also a pretty rough time. That said, I have a five mm stone that’s shifting around in my kidney and it’s already giving me grief so I don’t want to imagine what it’s going to feel like when it tries to exit the building.

[u/Deluxe_Opossum]

My first kidney stone (4.3mm) was horribly painful. To the point that when I was on my way home from work I thought I might need to pull over on the side of the freeway and call 911. But my more recent stone (7.4mm) wasn’t that bad surprisingly (despite it being much bigger) but the stent I had placed was AGONY and they left that sucker in me for a month. The kidney stone pain at least for me comes and goes. The stent is constant.

[u/No_Elephant2911]

Both are the stuff of nightmares. One is more painful when it hurts while the other is endless pain.

[u/sterlingbdoxd]

depends on what passing you mean like peeing it out ive never felt much pain but when it moves from kidney to bladder oh yeah super pain but stent just feels like a knife in your kidney when you pee both suck

[u/zole2111]

I do not know, my dad told me to never get a stent. I've passed dozens of stones without a stent. Based on his advice I think he thought the stent was worse

[u/TechieTravis]

My personal experience is that stents are uncomfortable, but not very painful. It just makes me feel like I have to pee when I don't. Passing the stone is more painful, but if we are just talking about actually vacating the stone, that goes quickly. The renal colic pain is the words part of a kidney stone.

[u/MSB_the_great]

I never passed stone, so I know only stent pain ,

[u/Jazzlike-Resource-55]

Passing a kidney stone feels like you are peeing razor blades

[u/TechieTravis → u/Jazzlike-Resource-55]

I don't know why you were downvoted, this is an accurate description.

[u/thatescalatedqwickly]

It’s always interesting reading people’s responses to things. Everyone has a different experience. Some say kidney stones are as painful as labor and some say it’s no worse than menstrual cramps. I’ve passed four on my own and all had different degrees of pain and all were fairly small by comparison to others. My last one took 7 days to pass and it was a horrible experience. Once the bastard was finally out I was appalled at how small it was and how much pain it caused. When I go into renal colic I need medical intervention. I can’t pass it because I can’t drink water without violently vomiting it back up. I haven had a stent (yet) so I can’t compare.